1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a job managing apparatus and method, a job managing program, a storage medium storing the program, and a job managing system. Specifically, the present invention relates to a job managing apparatus, such as a server computer that manages jobs transmitted to peripheral devices by a client computer and a method therefor, a job managing program, a storage medium storing the program, and a job managing system.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventional job managing systems are comprised of peripheral devices such as printers, scanners, copying machines, or multi-function devices (MFP) integrating those peripheral devices therein, client computers that transmit jobs to the peripheral devices, and a job managing apparatus that carries out job management of job data acquisition performed by the peripheral devices and job output control managing (refer to Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 2001-282475 and Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 2003-244778, for example).
The conventional job managing system comprises, for example, a print client 10, a print server 30, a server computer 40, and a printer 50, which are connected together via a network 60, as shown in FIG. 13.
The print client 10 has installed therein job account client application 11 and an application 12. These programs 11 and 12 are stored in a RAM provided in the print client 10. The CPU 201 executes the programs to perform processes shown in figures, hereinafter referred to. Further, the print client 10 is comprised of a GDI (graphics drawing processing subsystem) 13, a print driver 14, an output selector 15, a spooler 16, and a port monitor 17.
The print server 30 is basically the same in construction as the print client 10, and like component elements (for example, GDI 13 and GDI 33) of the print server 20 are designated by identical reference numerals in FIG. 13. The server computer 40 has a job account server application 41 installed therein.
The job account client application 11 issues a printing instruction for the application 12, which makes a GDI call for the GDI 13 to carry out graphics drawing. In response to the GDI call, the GDI 13 calls the print driver 14, which in turn converts the GDI call into PDL data and transmits the PDL data to the output selector 15. The output selector 15 transmits job data to the spooler 16 (or a spooler 36).
The spooler 16 accumulates the job data received from the output selector 15 and sequentially sends the same to the port monitor 17. The port monitor 17 receives the data from the spooler 16, and if the printer 50 is in a state where it can receive the job data, then it sends the job data to the printer 50, according to a job transmission method employed by the device.
As the job transfer method, there are known a LPD protocol regulated stipulated by RFC 1179 and a Printer Job Language (registered trademark) stipulated by Hewlett-Packard USA. With the Printer Job Language, a port monitor can acquire the number of pages of a job which is completed, through two-way communication with the printer.
As described above, besides the construction in which the computer indicating printing to the printer 50 is identical with the computer transmitting job data to the printer 50, there has been generally used a construction in which queuing of job data and transmission of the same are both carried out by the print server 30. In this case, the print server 30 receives a job data transmission request from the print client 10, queues the job data in the spooler 36, and transmits the job data to the printer 50 through a port monitor 37.
Further, the job account server application 41 sets in advance the upper limit of the number of pages or sides to be output in a unit time period on a user-by-user basis or on a section-by-section basis. When the number of output pages in the received job data exceeds the upper limit, the job account client application 31 can cancel the printing or carry out upper limit control processing by showing a warning message on a display of the print client 10. This warning message is shown on the display of the print client 10 by the job account client application 11.
However, in the above job managing system, to display the warning message in the print client 10 display, it is necessary to install the job account client application 11 in the print client 10. Therefore, when the job account client application 11 is not installed in the print client 10, the warning message cannot be displayed.